This is another interview concerning the excellent film Dare, which follows three teenagers—Alexa (Emmy Rossum), Ben (Ashley Springer), and Johnny (Zach Gilford)—over their last semester of high school; in this time they take risks and form relationships with each other, and the consequences of these actions change all three of them profoundly. You might remember Ana Gasteyer (who plays Ben's mother Ruth) from Mean Girls, or maybe you even recognize her from her involvement in Broadway theatre. In this interview she and I discuss the nature of adolescence, the prevalence of therapist parents, and the frequency with which she and fellow Dare actor Alan Cumming have crossed professional paths.
We’re definitely going to talk about Dare; it’s an excellent film. But first I wanted to sneak this in: I’m a really big fan of Reefer Madness.
Oh, thank you! Thank you. I love that movie.
[laughs] Yeah, I love it. You worked with Alan Cumming in that movie, too, as well as in Dare, and you were in The Threepenny Opera together.
Yes! Yes, that’s three times. I mean, I didn’t really work with him on Dare because he wasn’t in any of my scenes, but I’m always thrilled anytime Alan is associated with anything. He’s such an incredible talent, and he’s just very professional and very easy and fun to be with. Whenever I hear he’s associated with something, its cred is sort of upped for me.
Well, how did you get involved with Reefer Madness?
You know, that was one of those awesome things that never happens. [laughs] Quite honestly, my management pushed hard, and my agent pushed hard, and the director was familiar with my work, and… I’m not a big fan of publicity, but there was a time during which I had a publicist when I was on Saturday Night Live and I had this really great photo shoot for some really hit magazine, and there were pictures from that shoot that the director took one look at and said “Oh my god, that’s our Mae!” So it was one of those things where it all just came together. Seriously, I think it’s only happened like three times in my career where the phone has rung and somebody’s been like, “We have an offer for you for this fantastic thing!” [laughs] I was like, “Oh, great! It’s a period movie; I get to sing my face off; it’s hilarious; I get to tap dance… it’s literally everything I could want!”
And you got to be covered in fake blood, too. [laughs]
Oh, yeah. That was probably the worst part of it because it was really sticky and I was breast-feeding at the time—my daughter was a year old at the time of that movie—it was so disgusting. I’m sure she’ll just have permanent scarring from that. But it was so sticky that it’s just like jelly, that fake blood, and it’s so meticulous in the way that they apply it, and I just had to wear it for like three weeks straight, or however long that amount of time was in the film. But it was really fun. I feel very lucky that I got to do it.
And it’s great, as you said, that you got to “sing your face off”, because I know that you do a lot of musical theatre work.
Yeah. That was early for me. I hadn’t done Wicked yet; I was really at the beginning of trying to break into that, and that’s sort of where I’m heading more and more lately. It was really a gift. I wish the movie had been released wide, on big screens, because they did an incredible cinematic job with these huge pieces of musical production. The director, Andy Fickman, did all these excellent numbers and made great use of the whole panorama, and it’s really hard to see on a small television screen the amount of detail they managed to pull off for the amount of money they made that for. It’s kind of unbelievable.
I know. Every time I watch it I notice new details.
Yeah, and it’s one of those things where musicals are just… because we especially have basically been raised in the music video, we’re used to a really fast cut and a ton of visual information when we hear music on TV, so in movies you really don’t need a whole lot of coverage; you can tell the story very simply, visually. But in Reefer Madness it’s really unbelievable the amount they packed in, and it’s a real credit to Andy because he’s so meticulous and had every shot planned to the inch. He managed to get a phenomenal amount of stuff—that movie was shot in six weeks. Unbelievable.
Six weeks!?
Yeah! It could take six months for a movie like that. Look at a film like Chicago or Nine, where they actually have a budget, you know?
No, I would never have been able to guess it had been filmed in six weeks. It seems like it would have taken several months to film.
And I was always really sad it never had a wide-screen release. Apparently at one time we had an opportunity, but Showtime had already paid for it and I think they really wanted it to be their thing. You know? Because they have all this cool stuff. Apparently a lot of German people saw it because it was co-financed by people from over there? [laughs] I hear from German people who have seen it all the time.
Did you watch the original Reefer Madness propaganda film?
Oh, yeah, we watched that when we were in preparation.
All right—let’s start talking about Dare. How did you get involved?
You know, it’s a fairly dramatic role for me—within certain limits, anyway—but I auditioned. My manager had been very involved with the project from the beginning; he’d seen the short that Adam [Salky, the director] and David [Brind, the screenwriter] had put together and he’d kind of championed it. He works with me and he works with Emmy and he works with Zach, and of course all of us had to prove our way in, but he definitely championed the project and got me there and probably championed me as well.
I mean, it’s definitely a more dramatic role than that in which you’ve typically been seen.
Yes, definitely. And even though I’ve done musicals and also been in a lot of similar situations this is obviously a much more conflicted part and more representative, in terms of what we do for Zach, of a more caring maternal role. It was fun to do.
There’s this one line your character says in the movie that goes something like “Every parent wants their kid to break the rules once in a while; it shows that they’re normal.”
Yeah, I think there’s that concern where… you know, her son is a little bit of an outsider, and I think she’s often painfully aware of how—part of your job as a parent is to allow your child to find their own way in the world. You have many moments as a parent where you have to stand on the outside and maybe watch your child not make the best choice all the time. You know, and I think that in Dare she’s very much concerned that her son is playing too close to the vest and being too careful; he’s something of an outsider and hasn’t really taken any chances, and she’s sort of encouraging that even though her son feels like she really shouldn’t be doing that. It might feel like she’s encouraging the wrong thing, but I think her feeling is that you’ve gotta find out who you are… nobody wants their kid to have to make the hardest choices, and I think the dawning awareness that he’s probably gay is hard on her in the sense that he’s probably going to have to stumble around and find himself a bit later than other kids do. So I think that’s what that line is about in that scene. And, of course, she’s a therapist; she’s “hip”; she’s dealing with these sorts of patients all the time, you know? That’s sort of what I experienced while playing her.
The therapist parent is a very familiar sort of thing here in New York.
Yeah… [laughter] It certainly is.
Part of what was so striking about the film is how honest it was. All the performances were so honest, especially from the kids, and I was shocked by how real it felt.
That’s lovely! That’s lovely to hear, and I think Adam’s a really good director and I think they cast for very bare and—like you said—honest portrayals. I don’t think anybody was trying to send up anything or make fun of anything; it’s sort of a counterpoint to all these big high school comedies, and we see high school comedies all the time. And the thing I love about the movie is it lives in this incredibly awkward place where it’s not all stereotypey—I mean, there’s the jock, and the outsider, but everybody’s kind of awkward. You know, it’s about when you’re trying to kind of figure out who you are, and I love that it doesn’t make these huge sweeping strokes about it and it’s not all that conclusive. It’s not like, “And then Alexa turned out to be a real jerk!” You know what I mean? The film kind of lives in this place where you do act out and you make these choices that you might kind of wish you hadn’t made, or that you needed to make…
And in keeping with the realistic feel— [laughs] I kind of like how awkward all the sexy scenes were, for a change!
Oh, totally! I totally agree with you. Like, they weren’t easy, and they weren’t all that romantic, and they weren’t—that’s exactly right. But they weren’t horrible either. I mean, the point of the movie wasn’t “Isn’t this embarrassing?” It’s more like “Sometimes you just have to take chances and figure out what you’re doing.”
Yeah. It’s not glamorous or awful; it just is.
And it feels daring, you know? Little things like that feel daring. Staying out all night for Ben is a huge deal! It’s like this really rebellious, kind of awkward thing that he does. And that’s what that morning-after scene was like, when Alexa was missing: there’s kind of this relief for the parents, in a strange way, when they’re starting to make independent choices. Even though it creates tension with your parents, like, it’s normal. That’s your job as teenagers: to figure out who you are. To grow up and away from your mom and dad.
Dare is currently in theatres.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
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